Issa missed a great opportunity:
“Cost fell in my model”
Issa: “But not in reality”
Gruber: fill in the blank
Issa: “So, you built the model to sell the scheme, not to actually predict the outcome of the scheme, correct? I ask this Mr. Gruber, because I don’t think there’s a person in America that thinks you are stupid. You helped sell this toxic waste dump to the United States of America. Before you answer my question, consider that if you answer “I built it to sell the model”, then you are still a genius. If you answer, “I built it to model the outcome,” then you will be publicly verifying that you are either LYING or INCOMPETENT, and possibly both depending on the handwaving you did in the code to arrive at such a blatantly incorrect forecast.
So, Mr. Gruber, which is it: Did you build the model to sell Obamacare, or did you build it to predict the economic outcome of it?”
Exactly! And why or how is one economist smarter than thousands of actuaries in the actual health care field???
Great summary.
“Did you build the model to sell Obamacare, or did you build it to predict the economic outcome of it?”
If it’s the former, HE should be charged with fraud.
If it’s the latter, he needs to explain how he could have gotten it so wrong and he should be fired from MIT and sued for the money we paid him. Then the GOP should repeal Obamacare on the basis that it was a fraud.
So either Gruber is a fraud, or Obamacare is a fraud.
In the end, it’s not his arrogant comments that really matter. It’s his complicity in perpetrating fraud on the American people. Once that nut is cracked, it can go all the way up the food chain because we know Gruber did not act independently. He was part of a very sophisticated team with a very sophisticated plan to pull the wool over our eyes.